Some pictures of Desaru… Finally!!!!!
Photo of us waiting for the cab to arrive. Poor Yani.. she didn’t get to go.
The part of the cab that was damaged after the accident.
Bored kids while waiting for the ferry….
This one is one of the kids playing on the ferry to Desaru
Lobster lunch!!
Played Chinese Chess with dad, and lost twice!!!!!! He’s still extremely sharp, my dad! He’s the man!
With just two and a half days to go in 2006, I think it is appropriate for me to do a little review of the year. This has been a very difficult year, fraught with many challenges and difficulties, but an extremely rewarding year as well.
In December 30, 2005, I listed down a number of things I would like to accomplish in 2006. Some of them, I have managed to complete, but was not able to complete a number of the others. Here’s the list again:
I went into 2006 quite happy, but by mid January, things took a dramatic downturn. Dad was experiencing mini stroke attacks, and we sent him to hospital to find out what was wrong.
In Feb, I had a terrible Valentines day….things couldn’t get worser than this.
We bought our first pairs of Crocs!
In March, Elkan had a HFMD scare, and dad got admitted to hospital for tests, and the month of March was characterized by Dad’s stay in hospital.
I also decided to move on to another job, and tendered my resignation to U21 Global. In the midst of all these, I also found some time to buy myself the O2 Atom, which I later lost, found again, and finally sold.
I started work on April 3rd, which was also the day Dad did his bypass surgery. Things dramatically took a turn for the worse on 4th April when they discovered that Dad suffered a stroke on the left side of his brain.
Through all the ups and downs, Dad finally came back home in May, after a 2 months stay at the hospital.
In the mean time, I have been busy putting together the IT infrastructure at my new company, and had managed to visit Xiang Yang Market before it closed for good.
I also in the space of 4 months, visited Makati City in the Philippines, Kuala Lumpur, Amadabad in India, Jakarta in Indonesia, Sydney Australia, Shanghai China, Hong Kong, Seoul Korea, Ho Chih Min City Vietnam and Bangkok Thailand for my work, drumming up enough points to get my Krisflyer Elite Gold status in 4 months flat.
Celebrated Ariel’s and Mum’s birthday, and Father’s Day with dad in his first outing since being discharged.
Bought a new phone to replace my lost Atom in June, and Elkan welcomed the IMF delegates with a smile.
Attended my first board meeting, and had my first lunch date with Chris since the year begun in June, at the One-Ninety-nine restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Achieved the first major milestone in my IT project in July, and Skype came out with video for Mac OS. For the first time, I can Skype with video to my Mac at home!
Angelica was born!!!!
Finally, in August, we were able to get away together as a family to the Gold Coast! This was our first major holiday in ages.
Steve Irwing got killed by a Stingray in Sep
I started playing Maplestory in October. I’m a level 32 Spearman now by the way.
We started exploring City Harvest Church in November, and so far, its been really nice.
And…what better way to end the year then to be a recipient of the best notebook on the planet, the one and only MacBook Pro, and…. of course the great disruption to the Internet, with 6 submarine cables severed off the coast of Taiwan.
With all that has happened so far in 2006, you can certainly see that it was a really eventful year for me and my family. I know that we will always remember the tremendous amount of challenges we had in 2006, and for me especially, it was the most challenging year I ever had, but Thanks Be to God, I came out of it victorious! I know that without His guidance and anointing throughout the year, in particular the earlier part of the year in April and May, I would have buckled in long ago, instead of still being here extolling His Greatness! I know that there will be further challenges ahead, but I know for sure that God will also be there with me to see me through.
So, it is with boldness and hope that I look forward to the new year ahead. Here’s wishing everybody a Very Merry Christmas and a Very Happy and prosperous New Year ahead!!!
Technorati Tags: Singapore,
Church, City Harvest, God, Review, 2006, Craftsman
Finally! After two days, I finally manage to get access to my own blog. Huge congestion caused by the severance of six submarine cables, of which 3 (ACPN, ACPN2 and SEA-ME-WE3) that are co-owned by Singtel amongst a consortium of ISPs, made it virtually impossible for me to get access to any website outside of Singapore, let alone my blog.
First inkling that something went wrong was when I received a flurry of calls from my overseas offices, all wondering if the servers went down on Wednesday afternoon. Found out quite quickly that it was due to the earthquake in Taiwan, and that was it.
Good thing its still the holiday season, and people are still mostly on leave. Hopefully, the ISPs will have rerouted traffic appropriately by the time the new year starts.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Submarine Cable, Internet Disruption, Craftsman
Got an sms from my boss early this morning…..
Merry Christmas Paul. The server has been down since early yesterday morning. Pls check. Thanks xxxxxx
Never too far to provide support yah? Not even if I am in blacked out, flooded and out of reach in Desaru. 
If you think the 45 min black out in Singapore was bad, you havn’t been to Malaysia yet. The day started out well enough with mornign milk for the kids and medicine for dad at 7am. But by 7:30am’ our electricity was suddenly cut off. A call to dad’s and Bro’s room confirmed that it wasn’t just our room. A next call to reception confirmed that it was hotel wide.
We later found out that the cut off was due to a scheduled downtime from 7:30am to 5pm for urgent maintenance at the Kota Tinggi power station to fix problems caused by the flood. Also, the blackout affected this part of johore over a 75 square km area.
Actually…at this time of writing, the power hasn’t come on yet, and we’re using candles given out by the hotel. I’m writing via my Nokia E61 in complete darkness….I kid you not!
Anyways, just as well we hired a local van and tour guide to bring us around the area. Just because there was a power outage, and it had begun to rain by 8am, didn’t mean we were to sit idly by.
So, we headed out in the van which is large enough to accomodate 10 people. Dad, after a rested night and some painkillers emerged stronger, more alert and ready to take on the world. We were careful to watch over him regularly to make sure he was ok.
We headed firt to the crocodile farm, and then to the fruit farm. Both of which we were not able to enjoy fully due to the rain and power outage. Anyways, we dropped by Sungei Ringgit for a lobster lunch, and we were not dissapointed. We had four lobsters, just over 1.9 kg, a soon hock, cereal prawns, wild boar and veggies, paying RM340 for 6 adults and 4 children. Quite good value me thinks.
We tried to make a trip to the Ostrich farm, but were not able to visit it due to the heavy rain. So we headed back to the hotel by 2pm, and had indoor activities in the hotel.
Both Chris and I took a nap for about 3 hours while the kids played carrom and mucked around at the indoor playground with their cousin WW and their uncle BH and auntie SH.
The rest of the evening was boring with dinner at the hotel restaurant and preparing for the kid’s night feed.
The power just came back on by the way… Anyways, this is quite a memorable Christmas eve, and I am thankful that dad is healthy as is the rest of us, and that the entire family is safe and sound. i thank God for giving His son Jesus so that we might have life, and have it more abundantly,
Merry Christmas one and all!
It started well enough, with the kid’s year end concert at their school. Picked up dad and Yani, dad’s domestic helper to join us at school for the concert. Mum had already joined my bro and his family on the early ferry to Desaru.
After the concert, we went home for lunch and took a nap before heading out to Changi Ferry Terminal for the 5pm ferry. We decided to get a maxi cab to transport the 7 of us there. After hopping on the cab at 3:20pm, the cab turned out of the carpark, and just before turning into the main road, a Honda civic driven by a stoopid guy banged into the right side of the cab.
The damage to the cab was really secondary. As we were still getting out of carpark, we haven’t gotten our seat belts fastened, and during the crash, there was a little mayhem on the cab. Dad, in particular fell forward, and bruised his left hand. At that point, it still didn’t seem that bad, and dad said it was ok, so we decided to continue after the drivers sorted out the accident.
We reached the terminal, waited for 30 mins, and bought tickets, and found out just 30 mins before the ferry left that Yani needed her work permit to be able to enter Malaysia!! GOODNESS! What gibberish! We had previous maids we broguht along with us into JB, and we had no problems before. But, immigration didn’t allow it.
We had two options: 1) All head back to mum’s house to collect the work permit, and board the next ferry at 8:15pm. 2) Chris and the kids and dad take the 5pm ferry, and I head home with Yani to get her work permit.
I called my bro to let him know, and also to ask mum where she placed the work permit. It was then that I found out that she had locked up the permit in her drawer, and the keys were with her in Desaru! On top of that, the room was also locked! We were out of luck…. i had to send Yani by cab back to my sisters house for the next few days, and my dad, Chris and the kids took the 5pm ferry with just a couple of minutes to spare!
Then, I noticed dad kept looking at his injured hand wincing. When I asked him, he kept indicating it was ok. We reached the hotel, and had dinner at about 7:30 pm. It was then that we had another shock. As dad was starting to eat, he suddenly keeled over to the left, and I only just managed to grab him. That was the start of a couple of anxious hours. We managed to get a local doctor to make a house call at the hotel, and prior to the doctor arriving, let dad eat his dinner.
We suspected that he was really hungry and tired, as he had an unusually long day. But we were really worried.
The doctor came and saw dad, did all the measurements, and said dad’s blood pressure and heart beat were all superb. She concurred that it was likely the injury, pain and the long day that caused his short fainting spell, and promptly prescribed pain killers and a balm.
Still a little worried, but not as much. Praying that we can actually start enjoying the holiday. 
We’re driving up to Desaru on Saturday with dad, mum, and my bro’s family, and we’re getting worried about the incessant rain that has caused Kota Tinggi to flood. Weather forecasts predicts continued rains until the weekend, which could potentially mean a wash out Christmas.
Boy… not sure if we should even drive there…
Update: we’ve decided not to drive….taking the ferry instead
OK…I know how this is gonna sound to anyone hearing that I just got a new video cam. Yeah… out of control, spendthrift, yada, yada, yada…
Truth is, my old panasonic camcorder, purchase 5 years ago when Kyla was born, is broken for almost 12 months now, and I didn’t think it was worth the money getting it repaired. (It was repaired once before 2 years back.) Also, the fact that Saturday’s the children’s school concert, and I really want to record this on video. In fact, it was after the children’s last concert that the panasonic camcorder gave way. PLUS, we’re going up to Desaru, and I wanted a holiday video.
Problem was nobody I knew had an available camcorder. They all needed their camcorders for the Christmas break. So, I decided to go buy one.
With all good intentions, I set out to Suntec City to get my camcorder. I had a budget of S$600. I hit the normal stores, Courts, Boon and Carrefour. Carrefour didn’t sell camcorders, and I was pretty much set on buying one of those S$599 sets from either panasonic, sony or JVC which uses miniDV tapes. But, I thought I’d better get another quote from Harvey Norman.
Things tooks a dramatic turn then….I was made aware of this JVC camcorder at S$999, the JVC Everio GZ-MC500US. This little monster is a 3CCD, 5 Megapixel video and digital camera. It makes use of microdrives or compact flash cards to house the videos, and a SD card for still shots. Man… this is sweet. The thing that made me swing my attention to it, was the price. Man!!! It is retailing between US$1,115.59 - $1,432.07 in the States, and the right price would be actually S$2,299. At only S$999, it is slightly more than 60% discounted!
I found out from the sales guy (and he was pretty honest) that the distributor brought in a cargo lot to be sold off to one reseller. Harvey Norman swapped the entire shipment, and sold them at the Sitec computer show. There were only 30 sets remaining at the Harvey Norman suntec shop, and its a one time deal. I checked it up on the Internet, and discovered that this camera wasn’t even meant for Singapore. It was meant for the US and Canadian markets.
Good thing is Harvy Norman and JVC will support the camera in Singapore, and I got a 3 year warranty on parts and services. Needless to say, after some really hard contemplating, I bought it.
This is really sweet…
Went over to Joanna’s place with Ariel to pick up a Christmas Fruit Cake I ordered from her.
Joanna’s my ex-colleague at my current company, who left the company in June because she couldn’t stand my face. Anyways, we’ve made up since, and part of my penance is buying cakes from her.
Joanna, by the way is a great baker. She’s been giving us treats of her lovely cheese cakes for the longest time now, and they are just delicious! She’s also been giving the kids ginger bread men, which they’ve woofed down greedily. So, with Christmas approaching, and Fruit cakes being one of Chris’ favourite cakes, we decided to get one from Jo.
Jo gave us alot more than just a cake. In fact, she also included two tubs of cookies, and six ginger bread men (which will come in handy later during Kyla’s birthday party).
Her creations are really fabulous, and if you ever need any cakes or cookies, I would highly recommend Joanna’s Treats. You can also e-mail her at joannas_treats@yahoo.com. Thanks again Jo!
